Pre-application enquiries

Leeds City Council is committed to working with applicants at the pre-application stage of planning proposals and we actively encourage pre-application discussions for all types of development.

In order to respond within an agreed timescale and provide the most relevant and comprehensive information to customers, we are making some changes to the way pre-application advice can be obtained and these changes will be applied to enquiries made on or after 1 February 2015.

How do I get pre-application advice?

From 1 February 2015, all enquiries should only be submitted on the pre-application advice service form for your type of application, along with supporting information. We have revised our charges for pre-application advice and the appropriate fee should be submitted at the time of the request for advice. Guidance notes describing the service, enquiry form, details of the supporting information and relevant fees are available in the Documents section of this page. Please note: You will need to save the enquiry form to your system before completing it.

The enquiry form, supporting information and fee should be emailed to planning@leeds.gov.uk or send by post to: Planning Services, The Leonardo Building, 2 Rossington Street, Leeds LS2 8HD. You can also pay the fee by card over the phone on 0113 222 4409.

Will I be charged for this service?

In accordance with the Local Government Act 2003, it has been agreed to introduce charges to recover the costs of providing the service. The charging will be levied on all pre-application requests received on or after the 1 February 2015. Householder and major applications will still receive a free service limited to providing in principle information. However, any in depth work requiring specialist advice or visits to the proposed site will attract a fee. Any further in depth highways information or where detailed appraisal or analysis is required, will also attract a fee.

What information will I need to provide?

The Council will require certain information to be submitted with your pre-application enquiry to ensure that proper evaluation and robust feedback can be given. The pre-application advice service form provides a checklist of the information that should be submitted.

The level of submitted information should be commensurate with the scale of the development that you are proposing. The more comprehensive the information supplied, the more detailed our response will be.

Further helpA range of publications, guidance and policy documents are available in the Documents section which will help you develop your proposal.

The Council positively encourages any applicants to consult with neighbours and for larger schemes ward members and local communities on their proposals. A guidance leaflet Pre-application engagement – a guide to best practise available from the Documents section will help you with this.

A range of information is available both to help decide whether planning permission is needed ('permitted development') and what to consider before applying (please see the Related page).

If you want to apply for permission for more than 2 turbines or for any turbine where the hub height exceeds 15m, you must undertake compulsory community consultation before submitting your application. You must provide details of how the consultation was carried out, responses received and how these were taken into account with your planning application.​